The Unexpected Miss Bennet (21 page)

So that is how her ladyship must be handled, Mary thought. She resolved to follow his guidance. The doctor, on being introduced to the new companion, gave her a smile and a grave adjuration not to tire Miss de Bourgh unduly and to ensure that her charge was always well protected from draughts and ate no food that was too hot-natured. Meat must be well boiled, and cold drinks should be avoided. Yet as he gathered up his supplies and packed them away into his valise, he said something remarkable for her ears alone, as the others bustled around to help Anne into her morning dress.

‘I would like it very much, Miss Bennet, if you can induce Miss Anne to join you for a gentle walk in the gardens around Rosings as often as the weather permits. The exercise will do her good and put roses in her cheeks, I am sure.’

‘I will do my best, sir,’ Mary promised. Unfortunately, Lady Catherine managed to hear her words over the general hustle and bustle.

‘What is that Miss Bennet? What do you say?’

Mary had never told such an untruth so quickly in all her life.

‘The doctor bade me again not to tire Anne, ma’am,’ she said.

Lady Catherine eyed them suspiciously, but just then Anne said querulously, ‘Mother, attend me. Why do you not listen to me?’ She turned her attention at once to her daughter.

‘Yes, my pet. What is it?’

Anne gave some complaint and Mary schooled her expression into one of complete innocence. Had Anne also taken part in the little deception? The doctor finished packing and gave her a wink. Mary blushed.

The advice from the doctor gave Mary her course of action. If she acted the part of a companion and guardian, for she understood that her position was to be something of both, then she would have to bring about the separation of Anne from Lady Catherine, and thus make her own life bearable. She thought she could do something about that, and resolved to put it to the test as soon as she could. Accordingly, one morning during her first week at Rosings, after she learned the routine that Lady Catherine and her daughter kept, she made her first proposal.

‘Lady Catherine,’ she said at breakfast. ‘I thought that perhaps Anne and I could drive out in the carriage today, since the weather is so fine.’

‘Anne does not drive without me or Mrs Jenkinson, Miss Bennet. I do not think that you should be thinking up amusements but should leave that to me.’

‘Of course, ma’am.’ Mary nodded but she caught Anne’s expression out of the corner of her eye. The young woman looked distressed, as if there was something she wished to say. Small steps, Mary thought. Small steps. They finished their breakfast mostly in silence and then retired to the sitting room, where Mary picked up the book she had been reading out loud to Anne, a small book of learned essays, written by men who evidently thought literary merit lay in soothing thought rather than exciting it. Lady Catherine attended to her own business, and the two girls sat together, separated from each other by a small table. Mary read with as animated an air as possible, but the book was boring, and even she had trouble stifling her yawns. Longbourn was never this still, she thought, hard put to keep her mind on the solid book of sermons that neither challenged nor pleased. While the grandness of Rosings never failed to overwhelm Mary from the moment she woke up to the moment she laid down her head on her pillow in her small room, the house oppressed her in a way that Pemberley never had and Longbourn never could. Comfortable old Longbourn! So crowded with five sisters! She had wished for solitude all her years before Lydia, Jane and Lizzy left. Now she had all the solitude her heart required, and she found, as so many do, that one could have too much of a desired thing.

No wonder Anne was so ill – it was the only thing of interest to anyone here.

‘You read that sentence twice, Miss Bennet,’ Anne said, breaking into her reverie. Mary blushed at having been caught. She closed the book.

‘Perhaps we could do something else,’ she proposed hopefully. ‘A walk in the gardens?’ The doctor would be pleased.

‘Walking gives me a headache,’ was the querulous response. ‘I think I will retire to my room for the morning.’ Anne rang for her maid. Mary’s heart sank. She had been one week at Rosings and had never sat so still in her life. Dutifully she gathered up Anne’s shawl and followed behind as the maid helped her to her feet and led her up to her bedroom.

AS IT TURNED out, Mary did not have to persuade Anne to take exercise or air. Anne persuaded herself. Mary was surprised to see the spark that she had known was within Anne made manifest so soon, and it was lit by none other than Lady Catherine herself.

Mary had long suspected, and her suspicions were borne out, that Lady Catherine would be more demanding of her time and attention than would Anne. Most of what Lady Catherine required was simply admiration.

‘Miss Bennet, have you seen the fresco over the great hall? It was commissioned especially by my father after his visits to Italy. Miss Bennet, you must tell me what you think of our gallery of portraits. They show a true nobility in the de Bourgh line. Miss Bennet, I pray you will not write letters boasting of your new position at Rosings – the charms and delights of Rosings are not for gossip. Miss Bennet, tell me – have you ever seen a park as beautifully ordered and well-maintained as the grounds here?’

At first Mary had tried to make an intelligent comment, but it was soon evident that no actual opinion was required other than Lady Catherine’s own. Then she tried to respond politely, but there was never any time, as Lady Catherine furnished both her observation and Mary’s response. In the end she stopped looking up, and continued with her embroidery.

On one occasion she was reading out loud to Anne while Lady Catherine started up her conversation with no regard for Mary or her daughter. Rather than stopping, Mary raised her voice.

‘Miss Bennet! Are you even listening to me?’ Lady Catherine snapped. Mary stopped her reading and closed the book, marking the place with a ribbon. Anne waited, apprehensively.

‘I was not, ma’am,’ Mary said.

‘You were not?’

‘No. I was reading to Miss de Bourgh.’

This had an unexpected but wholly desirable effect, for it stopped Lady Catherine cold. She had engaged Mary to be a companion to Anne. Mary could hardly perform her duties if Lady Catherine continually sought her attention. Lady Catherine’s two guiding motivations, her demand for attention and her love for her daughter, warred with each other, and love won.

‘Well? What are you waiting for? Anne is waiting, Miss Bennet.’

She sat down and made a great show of arranging her shawls and skirts and settling herself in, fussing over her spoiled lapdog, and Mary found her place again. No sooner had she opened her mouth to read when,

‘Miss Bennet!’

Obediently Mary stopped.

‘Are you sure this is the book Anne would like to hear?’

Mary turned to Anne. Anne sat straight up. She started to say something, stopped, and then burst out, ‘Miss Bennet, let’s go for a walk.’

Had the tiny dog nestled in Lady Catherine’s skirt spoken up the effect could not have been more startling. Lady Catherine’s eyes popped in a most unladylike fashion.

‘Anne!’ said her mother, gasping quite like a fish.

Anne stood up and Mary followed suit.

‘I think that’s a splendid idea,’ Mary said.

IT WAS A lovely day to take some air. Rosings was such a grand estate. Mary had taken for granted the rambles in Longbourn that were enjoyed by the Bennet family. She also found much to admire at Pemberley, with its long avenues lined with stately trees, and its gardens and fields. Rosings was even more extravagant, so it was a shame that so little use was made of its grounds. The house was sited on the top of a rise, so that all might look upon it, and it might survey all of its holdings and be satisfied each day that everything was in its place, at its feet.

Not far below Rosings was the village of Hunsford and Mr Collins and Charlotte’s little house and the well-trod path that wound from Rosings to the parsonage, well worn by Mr Collins’s feet. Anne and Mary did not walk that way. By mostly silent agreement they wound along the gardens that spread out behind the house. As Mary noted from her window each day, it was untamed here, less groomed, more tangled and wild. There were the fields and the farm buildings and cattle and sheep. Deer stepped gently through the untidy pastures at twilight. This path was rough and rocky, and both women were breathing hard when they stopped to sit on a natural stone bench halfway down the hill. Mary looked back up at the house once.

‘It will be a very hard climb to go home,’ she said dubiously. Mary had only lately started to enjoy walking, when she had begun to sort through the loneliness and uneasiness that had plagued her when her sisters married. She did not necessarily enjoy the heat the exercise brought.

‘Indeed,’ Anne said. ‘We shouldn’t have come this way.’ But her eyes were bright and there was red in her cheeks, so unusual for the pale, still, quiet girl. She smiled now, shading her eyes. ‘I never come this way. We should walk here every day.’

Well, she was the companion. Mary smiled gamely. ‘It has a certain grandeur, a wildness as if it were an older England.’

‘One day it will be mine,’ Anne said. ‘Or my husband’s, though I don’t know if I will ever marry.’

Mary supposed that she should make consoling noises and assure Anne that of course she would marry. Instead she let the wind rush over her and lifted her face to the sun, playing with the clouds. A shadow swept over the two women and raced over the fields, the wind bending the grasses before it. From far away came the baahing of the sheep and the lowing of the cattle, a man’s rough voice and a dog’s bark.

‘Must you? Marry, I mean?’ Mary said instead. Wasn’t one perquisite of the wealth and status of a de Bourgh that she did not have to marry?

Anne gathered her shawl around her and shrugged. She looked away from Mary. ‘What else is a de Bourgh to do? We marry and we lord over Rosings and take our place among the highest in England. My mother was most displeased with your sister when she became engaged to Mr Darcy. He was supposed to marry me.’

Mary remembered Lady Catherine’s startling visit and Lizzy’s anger afterwards. She hadn’t found out until months later what Lady Catherine’s purpose had been, for Lizzy had kept her counsel out of anger and embarrassment. ‘I think we were all surprised, since they did not seem to like each other one bit at first,’ she said instead. When she had heard the news, she thought that she had been once again left out of being told anything important. Then she quickly learned that in fact, they had all been deceived.

Anne gave a thin little sort of laugh. ‘You were surprised at their attachment? I was not. The first time I saw them together, in this house last year, I knew they had very high regard for one another. I sit quietly, you see, but I pay attention.’

‘They must have been more forward with each other then,’ Mary said, still puzzled.

‘Hardly. They barely exchanged two words, but Mr Darcy took pains to stand next to your sister at every opportunity, and she could scarcely look up at him. I don’t need to read a novel to know what that means.’

So the attachment that the two actors hid from all their nearest relations had revealed itself to one silent girl. Then Mary thought of the implications of Anne’s observations. She, sitting silently, watching Mr Darcy. . . .

‘Had you – been in love with him?’

It was an impertinent question, but she felt she had to know.

‘Love does not enter into it.’ Now Anne sounded like her mother. ‘I hardly knew my cousin. We were pledged from infancy, and I grew up thinking our match was inevitable. I still wonder at your sister for going against my mother’s wishes.’

Mary was startled into a laugh. ‘I wonder at your mother thinking she had the right to stop Lizzy and Darcy from marrying.’

‘She had an obligation, Miss Bennet. If Darcy were not to marry
me
, he should not throw himself away on someone so very unsuitable.’